


Than Be The Hunter's Hound

by Kieron_ODuibhir



Series: Grey Feathers [6]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, Nightwing (Comics), Teen Titans (Comics)
Genre: Assassins & Hitmen, Dick Grayson is a Talon, Earth-3, Gen, Good Slade Wilson, Identity Issues, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Human Trafficking, Jason Todd is a Talon, Mirror Universe, Secret Identity, Starbucks, Stephanie Brown isn't Talon Yet, Tim Drake is a Talon, Villains, Was A Talon, casual background murder, grayson is Only Mildly Evil, used as a blunt instrument, which is honestly an achievement with his background
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-25 14:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14979197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kieron_ODuibhir/pseuds/Kieron_ODuibhir
Summary: In the ten years after escaping Owlman, Richard Grayson met three Talons.





	1. II

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to split this into chapters even though it's not super long. Title again from Anne Bronte's ['Song.'](http://www.mick-armitage.staff.shef.ac.uk/anne/poems/p-song.html)

The first one came to him.

Of course, he never knew he had. That would have been disastrous.

John Clock was hanging out with some guys he had just done a job with, in a sort of club owned by the Russian mob in Armenia.

It was a risky thing to do—the quirk of wearing his face-concealing helmet and body armor at all times became more bizarre and thus more suspicious when carried into off-hours like this. The bar was an annoying space, too, converted from a disused warehouse, with a balcony-style upper level suspended overlooking the dance floor portion of the lower one and the tables set around it. It had terrible acoustics and giant, buzzing fluorescent and neon lights.

They were sitting near the edge of the upper level. The noise was appalling.

But Hank Hall had slapped him on the back in congratulations for a well-timed shot earlier and dragged him off to share a drink with his brother and their friends, and since Don Hall wore his own mysterious cape and cowl as often as possible, including in seedy bars, Grayson let himself be dragged. Hank ordered him a beer. He ordered himself a straw.

Hank guffawed mightily when Grayson carefully fed the plastic drinking straw through one of the breathing slits in his mask, slapped him on the back again, and told him that was no way to treat a good lager. The other two guys along for the outing seemed vaguely uncomfortable with the sight, but weren’t going to say anything if their boss had approved Clock’s weirdness.

Don toasted him silently with some kind of cocktail, an enigmatic smirk playing about his lips. His own mask concealed his eyes.

Grayson liked the Halls, he thought. They were the sons of a judge, and according to his research had gotten their powers in connection with the man’s kidnapping. Hank had killed the mob boss who ordered the kidnap, and Judge Hall had disowned both his sons for their lack of regard for law and order.

This seemed like excellent motivation for a life of crime. He hadn’t volunteered this opinion, and the Halls hadn’t asked for one. Neither had they asked him for his story. He really was fairly sure he liked them.

Grayson had gotten about a third of the way through his beer, which he was not precisely enjoying and had no real plans to finish, when something broke through the electronic dance music vibrating the balcony from below.

A shout of alarm.

That wasn’t unusual in a rowdy place like this, but the tenor was weird. Grayson set the beer aside and craned his neck to see over the edge of the balcony. And.

For a second he thought he must be asleep and dreaming, because he saw _himself_ on the other side of the room. Standing on a table twenty feet down, a Russian gangster with a moustache held by the shirt with claws against his throat, as their owner hissed something into his face.

Slim and young and with dark hair cut just so, the charcoal tunic hanging over bare thighs as the gossamer crimson billow of the cape stirred, even in the very faint breezes that there were inside the cavernous interior space of the bar.

Then one of the target’s friends, presumably, swung a blackjack at the back of Talon’s head, and he _moved,_ ducking under the blow so it landed—sloppily pulled short—against the skull of the man in his grasp, who sagged. Talon dropped him negligently across the table and turned to take the attacker on, and then a third man weighed in and blood flew.

And by now the illusion had broken, because while Grayson recognized the style those were not his motions, of course they were not, it was not _him_ ; he was awake and well and free, and that was his replacement. The new Talon. He’d made his debut two years ago and was starting to fill out and look a little less like a child, which left him in that awkward stage for intimidation outside Gotham, where he was no longer small enough to be uncanny but not yet full-grown enough to be taken as an equal by dangerous men.

Grayson wondered if the man his replacement had been threatening had information the Owl wanted, or had broken some agreement, or if this was just some meaningless test.

Maybe he was actually here to fight the whole bar, just to make a point, either to Talon or to Armenia. Or maybe Owlman was going to lock him in an airless box for hours when he went back to Gotham as punishment for careless escalation, or hang him by his thumbs. Or anything.

He was still young, and very raw. He probably hadn’t finished the desensitization part of his training. Grayson had by that age, but he’d started younger.

The guardrail edging the balcony area was growing crowded with spectators as the fight escalated below into a general melee, and Grayson had stood without really noticing, and with only a little more attention followed in Hank Hall’s wake as the man shouldered his way to the front. Peered over that broad shoulder in its tight red shirt, watching the fight spill across the dance floor, as those dancers not inclined to join the fighting fled.

“Hey look, it’s a rival bird!” Hank shouted.

He hadn’t been here long enough yet to be really drunk, being only a little way into his second beer, but he never had many inhibitions, no matter how sober. He pulled a combat knife about the same length as Talon’s and much heavier from a thigh sheath as he gathered himself and swung a boot up onto the safety railing. “Let’s show this little pissant who’s boss. **_Hawk!_** ”

A red and grey cloak, and hood, and body suit burst over him with the word as he leapt off the balcony toward the fight below.

“Hank!” Don snapped from their otherwise abandoned table, even as he stood abruptly and literally threw his drink aside. “Why do you always do this,” he muttered, as below them Hawk’s knife clashed against Talon’s and the much larger bird let out a satisfied laugh. And with no further demur, Dove threw himself after his brother.

Nothing struck Dove, of course. Nothing ever did, more or less. He always knew where danger was going to be, and could move to avoid it smoothly just in time—Grayson had heard he’d won a fight with Blaze, once, direct hand-to-hand combat, when they’d both been after the same target.

Part of that was being the better tactician, of course, but that hardly ever mattered without exquisite prior preparation, against that level of speed.

(Grayson had been genuinely tempted to ask him for a spar in spite of the fact that he’d have no chance at all without going outside John Clock’s established skillset; had considered finding some pretext to seek him out as Sable for a fight even though he tried to avoid any one person meeting more than one of his identities.

If Dove hadn’t had the sort of preternaturally enhanced senses likely to detect the resemblance in his voice and posture, he’d have taken the risk.)

Don fought his way toward his brother’s back in a sort of dance, a study in efficiency, slipping around every threat and delivering incapacitating blows with rapid yet almost languid single motions. He made great use of pressure points, but also occasionally killed someone just as casually; a less experienced observer than Grayson could hardly have hoped to tell the difference.

(“I hate violence,” Don had told him when they met; what he meant was he hated to let violence go on a second longer than necessary.)

Grayson wavered for a second. He’d just punched and shot his way through a satisfying victory alongside those two, and they’d invited him back here to drink, like a friend. And not even pressed about the mask. He _liked_ them.

But he couldn’t risk fighting the new Talon, or even in _front_ of the new Talon. If anyone besides Owlman was more likely to recognize the pattern of his movement, he would be surprised. And if he was _injured_ …no.

He pulled out the heavy gun John Clock preferred and fired once into the brawl, killing a man who’d been taking advantage of the chaos to line up a shot on Hawk, who’d probably offended him at some point. Then turned away and slipped out a window without Talon ever having known he was there.

(Hank had four long thin scars down his neck the next time Grayson saw him, testament to how a less superpowered man would have died.

 _Why’d you walk off like that?_ he demanded the next time he saw John Clock, narrow-eyed.

 _Get into a fight with a superpowered assassin? On a mission that had nothing to do with me?_ Grayson answered, in Clock’s gruff tones. _Only if I’m getting paid._

Hawk laughed, and apparently he was forgiven. But that marked the end of the Halls’ efforts to more closely befriend John Clock.

It was for the best, really. After all, John Clock didn’t exist.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So for some time now people’s (including my tbh) desire to see Dick interact with the other Talons has been coming up against the definitive character fact that he would make every reasonable effort to avoid doing that, and they don't leave Gotham all that often. I’ve been chipping away at the problem of how to arrange it anyway, here we are. ^^
> 
> Mirroring Hawk and Dove was a blast, especially "poor dear Dove, who wouldn't hurt a fly."


	2. III

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Midsummer!

The second one, he went near knowingly.

He’d done his research on the location for his latest job, discovered that the outstanding reservations for the resort during the target period included the entire freshman class of Brentwood Academy including one Timothy Jackson Drake, and had to stand perfectly still for seven seconds, as a war erupted inside him over whether or not to withdraw from the contract.

He didn’t withdraw.

The job had nothing to do with the boy, the boy had no reason to know his face, and there was every possibility he wouldn’t even be _there_ ; Owlman kept this one on a bafflingly different leash than the one Grayson had known but six-day school trips to Caribbean resorts seemed like the kind of thing he would trim out of the life of any child of his even if they were not also his servant. The time could be better put to use training.

Still, he arrived at the resort on the appointed day with anxiety burning in him incommensurate to the danger or trouble of his work. It made his character harder to maintain, and he did his best to shut it away. His best wasn't as good as it had once been.

“You have a great time with us,” said the desk clerk warmly as he accepted his room key.

Grayson’s eyes crinkled. “I intend to,” he lied.

David Teal had been resurrected for this contract, not in spite but _because_ of his having been compromised. The job had been posted and accepted anonymously, so it didn’t risk compromising any other name by association, but when his presence flung up a flag—and it _would_ send up a flag—it would guarantee in short order the unannounced arrival of an irascible, relentless, calculating former President of the United States who had access to a formidable independent intelligence resource and was one of the hundred most dangerous humans alive.

Normally, this guarantee was a problem. But _this_ job was to arrange for the discovery, cessation, and appropriate punishment of all illegal activities relating to the extensive human trafficking operation being run through this resort.

Grayson knew of no one he would trust better to execute this than Slade Wilson.

It wasn’t quite generally known, because he tried to keep his profile low and a variety of authorities were willing to enable this, that everywhere Wilson went trouble found him. And he then found it back. And solved it, with extreme prejudice.

The number of orphanages-and-so-on saved from financial ruin, people dragged from fires, corruption schemes unveiled, abusive development plans stymied, and other skullduggery thwarted in President Wilson’s wake as he tore his way back and forth across the planet hunting rumors was probably going to lead to several deeply hilarious books someday.

Grayson very much hoped to be alive to see how various authors solved the problem of reconciling the former President’s all-American heroism with the frequently amoral yet expedient use of bodysnatching by his surviving son, that so often lay at the heart of those solutions that couldn’t be laid entirely on judicious use of violence or influence.

He also enjoyed the ridiculous adventures of Slade Wilson, itinerant inadvertent hero, simply because it kept the man busy enough to gain him a little breathing room, and made his movements much easier to track without drawing attention, since even with as many of the stories buried as could be reasonably managed, all the major exploits made it onto the underground gossip tree, and were never odd to ask about.

And on this occasion, it meant he could sic his most persistent hunter on his immediate targets.

All Grayson had to do was make sure his face and alias were recorded, in ways Captain Wilson’s network would detect, while making it look like an accident, _and_ while directing his onsite hacking toward the cover-up of the trafficking operation in such a way that it wouldn’t trigger any alarms on the traffickers’ end. _While_ still leaving clear enough digital footprints that the Wilsons could be relied upon, when they arrived, to follow his trail to the facts of the matter.

This was a delicate task, but not precisely an arduous one. Unfortunately, it involved a lot more sitting pointlessly about in plain sight than he was entirely comfortable with, especially in such a light disguise. As an excuse to be visible, he struck up an acquaintance with two other solo guests he was fairly certain had no idea about the kidnapping victims, and one he was even more certain had come here specifically to patronize the trade.

Jerry was here from Hong Kong for a business conference but had, due to a booking error, arrived two days early. Monique, from Illinois, had scheduled this trip with her mother to celebrate some kind of professional achievement, but her mother had broken both legs the day before their intended departure, too late to get anything refunded, and insisted Monique go without her. Arnold said he was just here to relax.

The four of them congregated in the hotel restaurant for lunch and dinner Grayson’s first day, and breakfast the second. Grayson turned down an invitation to join the other three on a rented speedboat, as he disliked noise, lack of cover, and being on small boats with people he distrusted. (It was potentially possible for him to drown repeatedly for decades, if he became trapped underwater.)

That afternoon, though, after a profitable few hours laying down a trail via his laptop from his bedroom, he joined them for a visit to the small amusement park adjoining the hospitality complex. Roller coasters were amusing enough, he decided, and he supposed that to people who weren't used to freefall and who would die if the cars disengaged from the track and sent them flying, the thrill would be much more pronounced.

Arnold didn’t come. This was a relief.

That evening, as the sun was beginning to hang low in the sky, he was sitting by the hotel swimming pool with his feet dangling in the water, a pair of headphones on (to explain his lack of immersion) but no music actually playing (to assuage his paranoia) when the children appeared.

It was obvious they’d just recently arrived, and even more recently been given the liberty of the hotel, because they descended in a swarm of swim trunks and hollering, three fourteen-year-olds in concert plunging into the deep end to a shout of _cannonball!_ Grayson leaned away from the splash, not wanting his hair to get wet—he’d bleached it for this job, rather than relying on a wig, but the curls relied on product to stay set.

Not that having his curls exposed as artifice would do any _harm_ in this context, but it ran against the grain to let a disguise be compromised unnecessarily.

“Help, it’s the attack of the pool gremlins!” shouted Jerry, who was three cocktails in and getting steadily more cheerful.

“Come join us at the grownups’ table, Dave!” called Monique. “Before they drown you to death!”

Grayson heard them, but failed to acknowledge. Because in the milling flock of children on the far edge of the pool, busily claiming sunbathing chairs and bashing each other with inflatables, his eyes had caught on a figure not quite moving in sync with the others. Barely thirty feet away, with nothing between them.

He was smaller than the last one had been—a little younger, possibly, but _definitely_ smaller, and very pale. He was holding a tube of sunscreen, as though even a very bad sunburn on him wouldn’t heal almost as quickly as it could rise. Then again, that would be very bad for his cover.

It was subtle, the way he stood out against the backdrop of his classmates. Grayson might not have caught it if he hadn’t been looking; as unable not to look, even after seven years, as a nesting bird wary of a cat. But it stood out, to someone who knew to look for it, limbs still cast halfway in a child’s proportions layered with lean muscle and moving without any of the heedless clumsiness of the surrounding children, but also without the careful restraint of fear.

This was a body that knew exactly how it moved through space at all times, cored in electrum and death.

Timothy Drake, the Talon of the Court of Owls, turned his head and looked across the swimming pool at him.

Grayson held his breath for a second too long to be natural.

Then he broke the spell, tilted his head a little, raised his eyebrows in his best baffled query. A smile jumped across the boy’s face—crooked, knowing, cold. Not quite one of Bruce Wayne’s expressions, but just a little too much like them. Then he turned away, flicked up the lid on the tube in his hand, and smeared a palmful of sunscreen over the curve of his own cheek. Turned his face up to another child, tall and scrawny, jabbering at him and bouncing on his toes.

Grayson tipped his head back and leftward, as though captivated by wind ruffling the palm fronds, but most of his attention still locked on that figure across the water.

The kid’s hair was also full of product—swept dramatically to one side in an artful show of presentation, gleaming smooth like a crow’s feathers, though not quite as soft, or as stiff. There were echoes of the Talon in the way he moved, even now, and Grayson wasn’t the only one keeping him in the corner of his attention—many of the other schoolboys monitored him, too, with the absent rhythm of habit, out of fear or admiration or some combination.

Bruce Wayne writ miniature. It was terrifying.

Grayson drew his feet out of the swimming pool and went to sit with Jerry and Monique under the sun-parasol at their table, headphones dangling around his neck.

“So, how do I get something to drink?”

Both of his new friends were delighted to be helpful.

Pineapple juice logically should possess a distinct flavor, but Grayson found himself unable to experience it. Every time he checked on Talon—and he knew he shouldn’t, it was like sticking his finger in an open wound, it was only going to increase his discomfort and worsen the problem, and yet he kept doing it, like a rank amateur who’d never learned self-control—Talon took only instants to look back.

“Something up, Dave?” Monique asked eventually, when he responded to conversation a beat too slow for the third time. It was…hard. Right now. Playing normal.

This was ridiculous. Even if Talon recognized him, he couldn’t snap his fingers and summon the Owl. Or even fight Grayson himself, here in front of everybody.

“No. Yes. I just…” What the hell, he had already flunked subtlety. “That one kid, on the other side of the pool?” He flicked his fingers. Talon was leafing through some kind of—magazine? Catalogue? While reclining on one of the sunbathing chairs in the fading rays of the evening sun, his tall associate leaning over his shoulder to point at things.

He wasn't overtly holding court, but a series of other boys had briefly come and gone. Grayson didn't know enough about children to know if that was normal interaction or the issuing of orders it resembled from his point of view. The orders could only be about petty things like who got to use what flotation device, if they were; he hadn't spotted any schemes to terrorize specific classmates or steal booze unfolding. “Could swear I’ve seen him somewhere before.”

“A kid?” asked Jerry. Leaned over, squinting, making his interest obvious even to people who _weren’t_ highly trained in observation. “Maybe a child actor. If he retired a few years ago it would make sense for him to be hard to place, children change so much, so much…hm.”

“No, Dave’s right,” said Monique, nails clicking against the tabletop. “I think I’ve seen him too. It’s vaguely…”

Grayson snapped his fingers. “Tip of my tongue.”

Neither of the others managed to summon the name—no surprise, they weren’t from Gotham after all—so the ‘mystery’ went unsolved.

When the sun finished setting and Grayson got up from the table, feeling he’d sufficiently played his part, Talon glanced over.

It was entirely natural and casual, within the bounds of the natural human reaction to movement in the periphery of vision. Grayson’s attention snapped to Talon as soon as _he_ moved. Talon waited for that, caught his eyes, and gave another of those terrifying thin smiles.

He got up from his lounging chair, took two steps forward, and dived into the deep part of the pool like an arrow into flesh.

Only when he felt his own surprise that the boy did not arrow through the water straight at him and leap out to attack did he realize that he had, against all reason, expected it.

“Dave?” asked Monique. “Dave, hello?”

“Yes, sorry. I should get a little more work done tonight, but dinner first is fine.” He dug into the depths of his acting abilities and grinned. “Unless you’d rather I gave you and Jerry more alone time?”

Teasing failed to throw Monique off-balance enough to forget the hint of concern he’d heard in her voice, and she continued to study him while Jerry made an agonizingly embarrassed noise in the background. They _had_ been flirting a little, but he didn’t think either of them really meant it.

“Okay,” she said. “And also shut up, no, come on.”

Halfway through dinner, the students spilled into the hotel restaurant, damp and babbling. Talon entered near the rear of the pack, with students at each shoulder whom he was ignoring. His eyes sought Grayson out across the room, and again he smiled.

The next ten minutes of dinner he consumed mechanically, until Talon was seated and the doorway was clear. Then he stood. “Sorry. Got to go. Just remembered.” His voice was planed-board flat and dead in even his own ears. “Put all the food on my bill.”

Who cared if he was suspicious? It would help draw in his target, right? And Timothy Drake had clearly already noticed him.

Grayson was never sure if he’d been recognized for who he was, or just as a more general _what,_ a covert operative of some kind _,_ or if the young Talon had merely reacted to being _noticed_ so incessantly. For all he knew he’d been mistaken for paparazzi, or a pedophile. Talon probably knew the business that went on here, after all. It was the sort of thing that would appear in a Court brief.

Probably that was all.

Almost certainly.

He abandoned the job three hours ahead of schedule. Wilson took the bait anyway. Arnold was one of several patrons swept up in the ensuing raid.

He even got paid on time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tim's fourteen here, he's just finishing up 8th grade.
> 
> Also btw guys, I've been hanging out on Tumblr _way too much_ lately, if any of you want to come follow me at whetstonefires so we can scream at each other about Batman and prompt minifics, and all those modern fandom things that I'm still trying to figure out because I am an awkward crowbeast. ^^


	3. IV

The third one, he didn’t even know about. He couldn’t have, because she wasn’t Talon yet.

He held the door open for a trio of departing teenagers on his way into a Starbucks in Manhattan. The first walked by without acknowledging him, talking volubly; the second nodded polite acknowledgement for his holding the door while keeping most of her attention on her friend.

The third teenager walked into him. Coffee splashed. Grayson recoiled, but the young woman groped wildly at him with her free hand for balance and he couldn’t easily get free to get some distance without spilling even more coffee and making more of a scene, so the edge of the spill caught him across the chest.

“Oh, man!” she exclaimed, much too loud, dragging him over the threshold into the shop to set her ruined (plain, black, small) coffee on the nearest table and grab a handful of paper napkins to daub at his coat. “Sorry, sorry! Wasn’t looking where I was going, always like this, sorry I’m such an airhead. Augh.”

“It’s fine,” Grayson said. His coat was dark grey, like most things he intended to own for any length of time, and of synthetic fibers. Even if his clothes had tended to last more than a few months before he got stabbed through them or otherwise covered them in blood, it wouldn’t be worrying damage. “It didn’t have any sugar, did it?”

“Nah, no. You’re fine? You’re really fine? You’re sure?”

“Fine,” Grayson agreed.

“Augh. Okay. God. Sorry, again. I’ve got a train to catch, I—you’re fine?”

“Yeah.”

“Great, okay.” The blonde flung the dampened napkins into the adjacent garbage can and snatched up her lidless paper cup half-full of black coffee. “Sorry again. Bye!”

She vanished into the blowsy overcast of the Manhattan afternoon. Grayson waited a few seconds before turning smoothly and following her out.

The girl was an amateur; she was still in his line of sight. He tailed her, casually, in the general direction of Penn Station. To his surprise her earlier companions did not reappear. Maybe she hadn’t actually been with them. She stopped regularly to admire architectural features, shop windows, and newsstands, getting herself bumped and jostled by annoyed locals and harried tourists, but did not attempt to enter any further businesses or purchase anything. She threw her coffee cup away in a designated receptacle, having nearly spilled even more of it on someone else before draining it dry.

Eventually she turned off the major streets and finally up a neglected alley—a relatively hard thing to find in this part of New York, where every square foot of real estate was worth diamonds. There was barely more space than was needed to contain the adjacent restaurants’ dumpsters.

The girl therefore had more than enough reason to feel cornered when Grayson appeared between her and the exit, but she didn’t spot him at first, too occupied with digging out an impressive haul of wallets from her various jacket pockets one at a time, extracting the cash and any credit cards, and throwing the rest away.

When his own appeared, he politely cleared his throat. Her head shot up, and she bridled, elbows coming out instinctively before a proper fighting stance locked in instead. Her hands remained full of wallet, and no weapon was in evidence.

“I’d like that back, actually,” Grayson said.

Her eyes tracked down from him to it—stupid, letting herself be provoked into leaving an opening—and back up to him. He could see her framing and discarding denials. “Oh,” she said after only a second, carefully folding it back together. “This one’s yours?”

He nodded. Nothing she’d taken was extremely important to him—the only charge card he carried was a minor line of credit under a false name he could cancel with a keystroke, the cash was negligible, and none of the contents were personal in any way. But it would be a significant nuisance to get the false identity documents replaced on such short notice, and the rush jobs would almost certainly be lower quality than the originals, so while it hadn’t been worth making a scene in the coffee shop, he did want it back.

Too canny to step closer to him, she tossed it underhand toward his chest. His hand flashed up to intercept and he checked briefly that she hadn’t managed to remove anything. It was fine.

“Sorry mister,” she said again, much less girlish gush this time but just as much attempt to ingratiate herself. “Just doing what I gotta to get by, you know? My dad’s dead, see, and Mom’s on drugs. I have to make ends meet somehow.”

Grayson panned his eyes down her body ending on her boots, then raised them back to her face with a cocked eyebrow.

The young woman smoothed the sleeve of her expensive leather jacket defensively. “Hey, poor people can own nice things. Maybe I got them before Dad died, it’s not like the resale value matches what they’re worth in hire-me cred.”

That was true, but he was fairly sure the boots had been bought within the last two days. The pattern of wear at the edges of the soles was nonexistent.

He opted to say, instead of this, nothing. The young woman cracked remarkably quickly and let out a sigh. “Alright, okay. I’m not starving or anything, you caught me. But my dad really did get murdered a couple years ago, and Mom does hit the morphine some nights.”

She wasn’t lying, this time. Not that he actually cared.

“I need the cash to afford my ticket home, okay, my crap boyfriend kicked me out of the hotel room after he picked up this other chick who’ll suck his dick without a condom, and I kicked in half but the room’s in his name and he threw out my bag but not the return ticket, and I blew all my savings on the trip, so I’m basically fucked.”

This also didn’t seem to be lying, though she was certainly casting herself as much in the role of victim as possible.

“I’ll murder him later once we’re both back in Gotham and I’ve had time to plan, but for now I just want to get out of this city before I have to find someplace to spend the night.”

Grayson nodded. Gotham, huh. “Where’s your bag?”

Her eyes pinched. “I rented out a locker at Penn Station. Look, what do you want, for me to beg you not to turn me in? You want a cut?”

Grayson snorted. Made a little smile curl his mouth. “I just wanted my wallet back. Your story was entertaining, though.”

The girl projected a complicated combination of relief and affront. “You don’t have to laugh at me!”

He shook his head. “Take the win,” he advised. “And be more careful who you try to rob.”

“I am careful! You looked like a perfect mark, just standing there like a total pushover holding the door.”

What did she think he should do, shove his way forcibly past women not letting him into a place of business with the desired efficiency? Ugh, physical contact. Step back and let the door close again in the girls’ faces when it became clear they weren’t stopping, making them open it again? That would just slow him down _more._

“I seriously considered killing you,” he said.

Which was an exaggeration, somewhat; he hadn’t been that offended by the theft and he didn’t kill for pleasure, and he hadn’t wanted a scene in the Starbucks, and his stabbing reflexes were under fairly good control these days, especially against people of whose presences he was already aware. He was carrying a strong poison, though, and had briefly contemplated the appropriate irony of slipping a dose into the tellingly lidless coffee while she carried on her pantomime of apology.

It was true enough that she believed him, though, and he watched her face pale several shades. “Uh,” she said.

“Be more careful,” he repeated, and took a step back, showing her she had a way out. She didn’t take it, probably calculating that getting nominally away from someone who had tracked her this far wasn’t actually worth passing within arm’s reach of him. Not actually dumb. He gave her a small nod, and wandered away himself.

He turned onto the next block, located a different Starbucks, and made a second, successful attempt to acquire a venti two-shot mocha latte.

He was becoming dangerously close to dependent on caffeine at this rate, but he cut himself off for a week every three months to make sure his withdrawal symptoms weren’t significant enough to be disabling, and beyond that found himself enjoying the reckless abandon with which he could allow himself to crave something sweet and creamy and full of mild drugs, and immediately satisfy the urge to purchase it. It was one of many little ways to prove that he belonged only to himself.

Craving satisfied, Grayson went to murder somebody in the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Center’s south tower. The poisoning went off without a hitch.

* * *

The fourth….

The fourth, he met only after everything.

So that’s a story for another day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The reason train station lockers still exist in this universe’s New York for Steph to rent is the same reason there’s a World Trade Center in 2010 for Dick to poison people in.
> 
> Also, ftr I conducted actual boots-on-the-ground _research_ on how Starbucks works for this chapter. Which was harder than it should have been because _the Starbucks menu is a nonfunctional item_ , what even is this tomfoolery.


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